Magic in the Middle Ages

Kieckheffer, Richard. Magic in the Middle Ages. Cambridge Cambridge Univ P, 1989. 300p. ISBN 0-521-31202-7... 

Magic progressed in the Middle Ages, and during the Renaissance Hermeticism was revived and merged with the Jewish mystical teaching known as Kabalah. 

In spite of the fact that magical practices were incorporated into Christian ritual and belief, early Christian theologians began to define magic as heretical and separate from religion. As the Catholic Church came to dominate Western culture in the Middle Ages, this view became the accepted norm. The practice of magic, however, did not stop. 

One of the most important developments in occult tradition to occur in the Middle Ages was the Jewish magical practice called Kabalah. The name Kabalah means received or oral tradition in Hebrew. It can be transliterated as Kabala, Kabalah, Kabbala, or the same three combinations beginning with the letter Q or the letter C instead of a... 

Burnett, Charles, Talismans Magic as Science Necromancy among the Seven Liberal Arts , in Burnett, Magic and Divination in the Middle Ages Texts and Technicians in the Islamic and Christian WhrM (Aldershot, 1996), 1-15. 

The predecessor of chemistry, called alchemy, flourished in Europe during the Middle Ages. Alchemy was a partly empirical, partly magical, and entirely secretive pursuit with two main goals the transmutation of ordinaiy materials into gold, and the discovery of the elixir of life, a substance that would grant immortality to any who consumed... 

Page, Sophie, Magic at St. Augustine s, Canterbury, in the Late Middle Ages , Ph.D. thesis, Warburg Institute, University of London, 2000. 

There is a new realization that many of the people who were persecuted as witches and sorcerers in the European Middle Ages were, in fact, innocent midwives and healers, and some of their so-called magical remedies had certifiable efficacy. They recommended analgesic clove oil for toothache, vitamin-containing herbal teas for pregnant women and listless children, and calcined egg shell for upset stomach, a source of calcium carbonate, a main ingredient in antacids prescribed today. 

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